Martin Allen admitted the Gills weren't on top form against Millwall on Saturday and blamed himself.

The Gills took part in a club golf day on Thursday afternoon and boss Allen felt that took its toll.

He said: “It was poor on my part to have organised a golf day on Thursday, less than 48 hours before a game. That was bad management on my part.

“They were in the hot sunshine for five hours and I don’t think that was a good idea of mine, infact it was a shocking, stupid idea and I will never ever do that again.

“Is that an excuse? Well the players didn’t use it as an excuse, they just said they couldn’t get going, they couldn’t get up to top speed.

“On Friday in training they were fantastic. I had to stop training because they were so at it. Against Ipswich they were absolutely superb. They outplayed Ipswich, they were better than them.

"It’s not time to be despondent, it’s time to help them, support them, look after them and then get back up to that high performance level that we know they’ve got.”

Millwall left the Gills trailing 3-0 at the break but Allen’s men upped their game in the second 45 minutes. The introduction of some fresh legs late on led to a much closer contest.

“When you play a Championship team you have to step up and match them,” said the Gills boss. “I didn’t really enjoy that first half and I don’t think we played how we can play.

“I thought it was a tremendous turnaround in the second half, the players showed a lot of courage and guts to get back into it. It looked like a tired, flat performance and it’s very rare we get that with our group of players. That’s okay. It’s better to get those (performances) out of the way now, rather than in a couple of weeks.

“Sometimes when it isn’t so good is when you learn a little bit more.”

Adebayo Akinfenwa pulled a goal back for the Gills with 13 minutes left, shortly after he and the young crop had been introduced.

“It was fantastic (for him to score),” said Allen. “He has worked tremendously hard, he’s a great character, got a great personality and I really like him. It was a great goal.

“I was chuffed to bits with the last 20 minutes with some of the young lads that came on, after all the extra training they've had to do. I was delighted for them.

“It was just a shame we couldn't get one more goal back because I was thinking we would then go on and beat them because they were finished.”